A New Year’s Dream – You Are Lovable Just as You Are!
Hello beautiful ones and a very lovely and sacred New Year to all. Many of us are giddily happy that 2020 is leaving; what a hard, sad, and often scary year it’s been. Many of us are experiencing it in our bones, muscles, and organs. I’m looking in the mirror and, with some shock, see a lot more lines and wrinkles.
Covid has certainly ushered us into a new reality, but if one is ready for it, this ongoing experience may be bringing us an incomparable gift.
The pandemic has proven that we are not really in as much control of things as we may have thought. We are still deeply subject to the vast powers of nature, illness, and death. And the gift of this great, collective humbling? I believe we’re being offered (should we be up to receiving it) the gift of authenticity. Like the Velveteen Rabbit in the classic children’s book, we are becoming more real.
A gift like this, however, comes with a high price; Some major illusions were ripped away in 2020, and disillusionment can be quite painful. Death became much more of a companion, and dissent, anger, anxiety, and the questioning of truth has became the norm. This has been the year of transparency. For many, the concept of “safety” has been altered dramatically.
Many feel restless, stressed, and perhaps more strongly than ever, hearing a call to action clanging in our hearts. We may not know with any clarity what we are being called to do or be – but we are on high alert that change is happening now and full of potential opportunity. As the mystical poet Rumi wrote: “You must ask for what you really want. Don’t go back to sleep!” With the course of the pandemic taking its time, we’re not easily going to be going back to sleep.
Speaking of sleep, last night, I had a really vivid dream that I want to share with you.
I hadn’t made any new year’s resolutions yet, but the dream showed me that my soul has most definitely set a new resolution. I crave dreams like this, for they seem to be one of the soul’s favorite ways to communicate with the conscious mind. An other way of communicating, by the way, is to hit us over the head with the proverbial two-by-four. I’ve had my share of those experiences, (and Covid is one of them!) and I much prefer paying close attention to my dreams!
In this dream, I was opening up some kind of new business. I don’t remember what kind of business, but in the dream, I was making a business plan. I was absolutely driven to include one very important aspect of the business, and I remember discussing it with some kind of advisor or business partner. What I dreamt, and felt adamant about was this: That each customer should feel very much loved.
I don’t remember much else about the dream but I woke up so happy and peaceful. It felt so right….that each customer should feel loved. Wow, I thought, I certainly do want that for my clients! People really need to feel loved, accepted, appreciated, and seen….and if only all businesses adopted this mission.
So there you have it. Know that when you call on me for help, I want to be a channel for love.
I want you to feel it. I want love to flow through me and mirror back to you that you are truly loved. You’re deeply loved by the Universe. Yes, you are lovable, and lovable just as you are!
So many of us feel broken or damaged by our history. So many of us feel guilt, shame, anger, frustration, and sadness from this challenging endeavor of being human. But what I’ve come to learn in the nearly 30 years of working intimately with so many people, is that inside, we are all the same. Inside, we all want and need love. Inside, along with our many personality quirks, we actually are love itself.
All the rest–what we see on the outside of each other— is clothing stitched from various aspects of the struggle to survive. We see scars, we see unconscious habits, and we bump up against each other’s invisible armor. What we see on the outside of each other, though may seldom know what we’re seeing, is really conditioned patterns, programmed perceptions, and, so often, learned strategies to hide our feelings of vulnerability, unworthiness and fear.
I know that you are worthy of every single thing your heart desires, including to be loved unconditionally for who you are – warts and all. But do you know that?
Are you judging your insides by other people’s outsides? Have you learned to hide your authentic self in order to survive or because you think others will reject you? What do you want for your life now? Who do you want to be in this life?
If you aren’t asleep, you may be truly understanding how poignantly fleeting this particular physical lifetime is. But where to go and how to go, day-by-day, with this understanding?
Here are some suggestions/reminders of what to bring into this brand new year:
Bring your intention to keep going within! Find the inner freedom of peace within every day. You need to make the Center Within your home base. All good flows from there! Establishing a daily meditation or self-reflection time is important. Take your relationships there for inner council. Take your work in the world there for advice and blessings. Take your health problems there for healing. Listen within, then act externally as directed.
Ask your Higher Self (or whatever you consider a higher Source) to show you both your shortcomings and your talents. Ask for the humility to see yourself with clarity. Edge up close to the darker places where you could have done better or given more. Just see this stuff. See it with non-judgement and open curiosity, as if you were looking at a painting; for you are a work of art, and a work of art in progress.
Accept these dis-owned parts of yourself with compassion; for compassion is the gift of acceptance. Open your heart to these misguided, fearful, imperfectly perfect parts of yourself. See if you can muster some radical self-acceptance. As you open your heart to yourself, grace comes in the form of forgiveness. With self-forgiveness comes the ability to start anew, each and every day – to let go of the past and release your inner burdens of guilt, shame, and self-rejection! With forgiveness comes new energy, new choices, and the lightness of inner peace.
Appreciate this beautiful and horrifying world that’s evolved from the collective unconsciousness. Accept all the people in your life who, if they could have done better, would have done better…for given the unconsciousness and programing that we’ve all inherited, we do go through life in various stages of being asleep. Accepting people’s limitations does not mean approval of them. It just means that you aren’t resisting the idea or the fact of them. They exist. What you do with your acceptance is your choice. Acceptance is freedom!
Know that you aren’t alone. There is a Higher Power for good working within each of us and in the world. There are invisible forces of Light urging us all to grow and evolve. The Light shines through other people, in the natural world, in literature, art, music, all forms of creativity and science … Seek the Light to renew your spirit.
Be the consciousness you want to see in the world. Baby step by baby step, make daily decisions to push beyond your fear, self-sabotage, and the inability to give yourself over to love and growth and peace. Be a warrior for living life fully and courageously in the face of heartbreak, violence, and death.
Be grateful. Fill your consciousness with gratitude rather than negativity. Seek the higher perspective always. Keep your eye on the good and let that steer your flight. Affirm the good daily. Let the vibration of goodness lift your spirits, for the energy of gratitude does that. Sometimes we need some help feeling gratitude – reach out for help when you need it. Others can help lift your energy and spirit. We need each other for that!
